


a cruel summer with you

by AmyDancepantsPeralta



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Amy Santiago Loves Jake Peralta, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, F/M, FWB, Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago Fluff, Peraltiago, based on cruel summer, pining!amy, those feels are contagious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-03 23:36:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20461385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmyDancepantsPeralta/pseuds/AmyDancepantsPeralta
Summary: “I love you!  Okay?  I love you.  You’re a pain in my ass sometimes, and you cannot clean to save yourself, but for whatever it’s worth, I love you.”  She laughs, a short self-deprecating bark.  “Ain’t that the worst thing you’ve ever heard?  But there it is.  It’s true.  I love you.”





	a cruel summer with you

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this is a short little friends with benefits fic that came from my listening to Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift one too many times (which I highly recommend you do the same!)

**it’s a cruel summer with you**

The bar is noisy tonight, a rambunctious crowd of newly turned 21 year olds taking up court in the centre of the venue as they sing along loudly to a song she doesn’t know playing on the jukebox.

Amy slams another shot glass down on the bar, wincing as the strong liquor burns her throat along the way. She revels in the ache - it’s weak after all, compared to what her heart is feeling - and she looks up to watch her partner laugh along with their friends, blinking slowly as his mega-watt smile cuts through the crowd, hitting her square in the chest.

Her feet tap restlessly against the metal edges of the barstool, a dull clinking sound barely reaching her ears as she gestures to the bartender for another shot. She can hear more laughter coming from a booth to her right and she ducks her head until another glass is shoved in front of her, making quick work of the drink and looking up just as things begin to spin.

His eyes catch hers, and the tears begin to well up again. She can’t do this. _Not tonight._ Her head shakes, hands reaching blindly into her purse and shoving bills onto the bar before pushing herself away, unsteady feet carrying her far from everything with a surprising speed.

The air outside is warm, as it has been for months now, and she runs into the street with her arm raised high, hailing the first cab she sees. Through the intoxicated haze Amy swears she can hear her name being called out, and it’s a voice she knows (it’s a voice she _loves_), and for that reason alone she clambers into the car without a second thought, rattling out an address as the tears cascade down her face. 

She had been crazy to think that this could ever be something casual. 

_Two months earlier …_

Amy can feel his hand heavy on her back as she sits up slowly, fists clenching the sheets close to her body while she draws her knees up. The room is quiet, a heavy cloud of unspoken words hanging over them as they both fight to catch their breath. 

Dropping her head she uses the length of her hair as a curtain, hiding her face behind it as she listens to Jake’s breathing start to regulate. There are a thousand things she wants to say, but in this moment she daren’t let herself speak.

“So … what is this, exactly?” His voice cuts through the silence, confusion clear in the tone.

Amy shakes her head, throwing in a shrug of her shoulders for good measure in case he missed the first response. His hand is still resting against her skin, the warmth of his fingertips searing through her muscle, and it slips slightly as her shoulder blades lift. He doesn’t readjust, and with a quick sniff she moves, scooting her body to the edge of the mattress and reaching for her shirt, thankfully one of the few items still within reach.

Once, is a mistake. Twice is a habit. Tonight makes three.

She knows his eyes are watching her move about the room, sliding on the pieces of underwear as she recovers them, and she’s careful to keep her face turned away. Jake has known her and worked with her for so long that she knows if she were to turn, he would read her like a book.

The next sentence takes a lot of courage. “How about we just stick to what you suggested last time?” She speaks to the wall, wrestling with the band around her wrist until her hair is up and away from her face. Buttoning her shirt carefully as her hands begin to shake. Putting on her best version of a relaxed face, she turns to face him. “No rules.”

He sits up, eyebrows raised in surprise. “No rules, Santiago?”

“Yeah. It’s cool.” The words feel foreign on her tongue. It’s not what she wants, but she knows it’s what he wants to hear.

He nods, dropping his gaze to the tangled mess of sheets surrounding him. “Yep. Cool. Keepin’ it light and breezy. Cool cool cool.”

It hadn’t even been a particularly special day the first time it happened. Just another Wednesday, except this Wednesday they were spending their night at Shaw’s celebrating because after _three long months_ they had finally managed to catch their perp in the act, putting an end to his chain of felonies throughout the city. Impressed with their work, Holt had given them the following day off, and in hindsight they both should’ve headed straight home - they were exhausted, after all - but the fluorescent lights of the bar were beckoning and before they knew it there were five empty glasses on their table.

They had both been quick to blame the alcohol when they’d woken up the next morning, skin feeling cool against the sheets in the absence of clothing, confused eyes searching for answers amongst the trail of garments that led to Amy’s bedroom. It had been a stressful few months, and their inhibitions had been low, and _it didn’t mean anything._

It was another two weeks before it happened again - the longest two weeks of her life, because for the first time in years she was avoiding her partner as much as humanly possible. And then a missing person’s case had turned into a manslaughter, and she’d been drowning her sorrows in their booth when he’d looked over at her, and next thing she knew her clothes were on his apartment floor and he was telling her that _we should just keep this simple, no rules, just sex _and in that moment she would have agreed to anything if it meant that he kept kissing her. 

So now, as the afterglow of three begins to fade, she puts on a brave smile, shrugging her shoulders in what she prays looks like casual indifference, sliding her jeans back on while her eyes scour the floor for her purse. From the corner of her eye she can see him flop back onto the pillow beneath him, palms resting against his forehead as his fingers rake through his hair, and she wants it to be _her_ hands running through them, like they were just a few minutes ago, but she _can’t_ because he doesn’t want that at all, and so she grabs the strap of her purse, clearing her throat and calling out a farewell. The door is slamming closed behind her before she can hear his response.

He finally catches up to her in the break room two days later, both of them pretending that the distance between them hasn’t been deliberate. 

She hears him before she sees him, body already stiffening as she listens to the tell-tale signs of sneakers scuffing across the tiled floor. Suddenly, she is incredibly invested in knowing the entire contents of the vending machine, eyes glued to the familiar reds and yellows of a Clark bar when he approaches.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were avoiding me.” 

She winces slightly at the obvious hurt in his voice, and even though she can’t yet tear her eyes away from the machine, she shakes her head quickly. “No, not really. Work’s just been crazy lately.” It’s a lie, and a bad one at that, and she knows he can tell. She’s grateful when he doesn’t push it.

“Look, I just want to make sure after everything - ”

“It’s fine, Jake. Really.”

His hand rests along the top of the vending machine next to hers, and he releases a heavy sigh as her head turns curious towards his. The cheap bulbs behind the glass light up his features, the suitcases under his eyes growing obvious now that she’s really looking at him. A tiny pang runs through her heart that she could be the cause for any of his exhaustion and her hand clenches by her side, resisting the urge to reach up and rest a palm against his cheek. 

“I just think … with the work we do, what we face every day, and let’s face it - my track record, keeping things casual is the best option.”

And she’s trying. She’s trying _so very hard_ not to let him see how much this is killing her, how difficult it is to plaster on a smile and tell him that light and breezy is a great idea. That he is right, that trying to be more will only lead to disaster. It kills her that he already thinks he’s going to screw this up. She knows, _she already knows_, that if they ever did this for real, there’s no way he could ruin it.

But he doesn’t want it to be real; and while sporadic, these tiny fragile pockets of heaven were worth the wait, so she nods in agreement to everything he said. Friends, with benefits: the only rule being that there _were_ no rules - no attachments, no feelings. 

She’s at his apartment by the end of that very day, running hands over a body that is beginning to feel so familiar, so precious, and for the first time in her life, Amy begins to break the rules.

Like a sucker, Amy waits by her phone each nightfall, fingers hovering over the glass time and time again. Their arrangement has been working for close to a month now, so she should be confident enough to beckon him to her, but it’s been three days since she last saw him, and logically she knows that it was work that pulled him away, but also _maybe_ he’s decided to move on. Maybe, he’s found somebody that makes him feel the way she feels whenever she looks at him. 

All the words she wants to write sound desperate, because she _is_, still craving another fix of him, even though the week before had seemingly provided her fill. Nearly dropping her phone in shock when it vibrates against her skin, she’s quick to unlock the screen, heart jumping up to her throat as she races to her window, face cracking open with a giant smile when she sees him standing on the sidewalk. He’s here - everything she needs is waiting for her on the street below - and then she’s pressing the buzzer to release the front door and he’s _here_ and her clothes are falling to the ground. 

His kisses are different. Maybe it’s her, maybe she’s projecting, but his kisses feel different, like he’s a starving man in the desert and Amy’s a mirage he refuses to let disappear. She lets him drink her in, returning his touches with her own, and the couch cushions are soft underneath her bare skin and she has a newfound hatred for the word casual. 

Jake doesn’t stay - they never do, an unspoken rule amongst the nonexistent - but he lingers, fingers gliding softly along her back and she closes her eyes, safe in the knowledge that he cannot see the look of contentment on her face. She wants him to stay, but cannot bring herself to say it, and eventually he moves, throwing a hand up in a casual wave as he leaves. It’s another few minutes before she hears his footsteps fade down the hallway, and the couch is cold without him there, but her bed is so large and empty and she can still smell his aftershave, so she drops her head back onto the throw cushion to breathe him in. 

She waits until the sound disappears before letting her tears fall.

It’s been another month (making it three in total, not that she is keeping count), and they’ve almost got the whole thing down to an art.

There are signals and messages and systems set in place, and it rarely stretches past a day or two before one is reaching out to the other. The neighbourhood that separates their apartments holds home to a relatively well maintained park, and Amy has walked through it so many times that she’s begun to track the growth of the wildflowers, often stopping to admire the blooms along the way. Sessions between the sheets have extended to takeout dinners and the occasional Netflix session, but nothing ever builds past that, and it’s killing her slowly, but the alternative is far worse.

Today is Boyle’s birthday, and in true Charles fashion he’s thrown a party that promises endless drinks under only one proviso - that everyone turns up in costume. Despite their greatest of protests, the benefits had inevitably outweighed the costs, and one by one they filter into the apartment, each heading straight to the bar in a desperate need to forget what they are wearing and just have _fun_.

It isn’t long before the room is filled with a myriad of characters, faces unrecognisable behind masks, conversations fading into the background as the music grows louder and louder. Charles, in his element, flits between pockets of people, encouraging his guests to try the more obscure appetisers being passed around. Amy adjusts her outfit, a simple black and white dress covered in a crossword pattern, smiling at a sailor Terry as he describes at great length Cagney and Lacey’s recent ballet recital. It was the end of a long week, and if she hadn’t been surrounded by her friends she would have left hours ago. 

At the back of the room she sees Rosa, smirking at the crowd surrounding her before rolling the dice for a game of Snake Eyes, the red sequinned horns of her devil costume barely peeking out from her mass of dark curls. She rolls a five, and Hitchcock cries out in victory, clearly unfamiliar with the concept of the game.

To the right of them, Jake stands tall, looking remarkably accurate as Robin Hood, plastic archery set still tied safely to his back. He’s laughing with a beautiful dark haired woman, who in a vague memory she thinks may be named Sophie, and the woman flips her hair and Amy’s eyes narrow. She knows that move. She’s _made_ that move. This chick was getting her flirt on with Jake, and there was nothing that she could really do. 

Her eyes narrow as she struggles to lip-read, trying and failing to seem casual about it all as she tunes out the sound of Terry’s voice. From beside her, the glittery halo attached to Gina’s head catches the light and her eyes roll, exasperation obvious as she turns back to Amy, muttering something about being _‘the worst kept secret’_ and briefly Amy wonders if perhaps she and Jake haven’t been as covert as they’d thought. Not that she minds, really - she’d shout this all from the rooftops if she thought he would be okay with it. 

And there are times when it feels like maybe he _would_ be okay with something more than what they have now, when his hands linger more than normal over her skin, or his eyes hold her gaze for longer than a beat and she can almost swear that she can see feelings underneath it all. 

But then he pulls back, and it’s another day or two before they’re back to old habits, and while she’s almost certain there hasn’t been anybody else there was always the _threat_ of somebody, a somebody worthy of a title like girlfriend, and when she watches him talking to women like this (_Sophia! That’s her name. Sophia_) the danger of losing him becomes a little too real.

She excuses herself from the conversation under the guise of needing a refill, quickly downing the remaining contents of her cup as she heads towards the bar - an area that also happened to be conveniently near Jake and this Sophia. He breaks the conversation with her as Amy nears, and the other woman watches on before stepping back with a raised eyebrow.

“Found a new friend?” She tries to keep her tone light.

“She’s a lawyer. I actually don’t even know how she got invited.” Jake answers quickly, reaching for the nearest bottle and pouring the contents in as he speaks. “We were talking about Boyle’s latest arrest.”

“The flasher?” He nods. “Well, I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure she wants to flash you.” The smile she wears is so forced, desperate to keep the tone light, knowing that one wrong move could bring this arrangement of theirs crashing down.

He doesn’t respond straight away, eyes staring at the bottles of liquor, the grip on his cup a little tighter the only giveaway that he’d heard her at all. And then he’s looking at her, a careful gaze that she doesn’t quite know what to do with, one that makes her feel entirely exposed. It feels like it stretches on forever, until finally he shakes his head - “Nah. She’s a defence attorney, Ames. That’s like … the closest thing to evil in our world. And besides, I -”

A cheer erupts from their left, snake eyes finally landing on the table, and Amy is grateful for the distraction as she lifts the red plastic cup to her lips. He moves a little closer, lowering his voice the way he does during _other things_ and a tiny little tingle runs down her spine. “Meet me at mine in like … half an hour?"

Her teeth feel sharp against her lower lip, a surprising sensation that cuts through the alcoholic haze, and she nods quickly, ignoring the flush of red that washes over her cheeks.

He falls asleep before she’s even had the chance to leave, laying stomach-down on the mattress, one hand still resting against her abdomen while he snores softly. Revelling in the moment Amy follows the lightly coloured freckles on his skin, playing connect-the-dot along his arm until she reaches his hand, linking their fingers and trying _so hard_ not to cry when his hand grips hers. She stays, longer than she probably should, but moments like this are what she craves the most, and even if it’s only an hour, it’s already better than she imagined. 

When he opens his eyes again it is daylight, and Amy is long gone. She’s left a note on his bedside, neatly spaced out in her careful handwriting, and he reads it over and over but the message never changes. That she can’t do this, that it’s all become too much, and _please don’t talk to her about it_ because she doesn’t think that she can.

And just like that, it was over.

_Present day_

The grass is surprisingly cool against Amy’s bare feet as she runs through the park, shoes gripped in one free hand while the other wipes tears away from her face.

She can hear Jake calling out her name from behind, but she just can’t bring herself to turn around. There’s a part of her that still isn’t sure how she got here in the first place, doesn’t understand why she gave the cab driver this address instead of her own. She should have just asked him to drive on, rising number on the meter be damned. 

But she’d stepped out onto the sidewalk outside Jake’s apartment, and her eyes had still be trained on the window she knows to live just to the right of his bed when another taxi pulled up, and this time Jake got out, calling out her name as he slammed the car door behind him.

He had moved so quickly towards her that she hadn’t had a chance to prepare herself for his arrival, heart still pounding somewhere outside of her chest because _not tonight_, because _in vino veritas_, because all of the things she had been trying so desperately not to say were bubbling up inside of her, and she _still_ isn’t sure just how she got here.

And then she was running. Turning on her heel and heading straight for the park she knew so well, ready to cover the same path she had taken almost every night this entire summer.

He’s faster than her, calling out her name as he follows, and not for the first time she’s resentful of her shorter legs. The grass spins, alcohol catching up to her mind and she slows, exhausted by the sprinting but more so because she’s tired of hiding, tired of pretending that everything is fine when it so clearly is not. 

His breath is ragged and his hands are gripping his sides when he stops in front of her. His confusion is obvious, but more than anything he looks concerned and it’s enough to make her the tears start back up again. She pushes her head up towards the sky, unfocused eyes trying to make out the glittering dots as she blinks, a quiet sob escaping her throat.

“Ames?” 

She doesn’t trust herself to speak.

“What the hell happened back there?” Her head shakes, shoes dropping to the grass with a soft thud so that she can cover her face with her hands.

“It doesn’t matter, Jake. It’s stupid, really.”

There’s a shocked tone to his voice. “Of course it matters, Ames.” It’s so sincere, so sweet the way he speaks to her, and she doesn’t want to love him but she really, _really_ does. He clears his throat. “I know I haven’t spoken to you tonight, but you told me not to, and I wanted to show you that I respected your decision, even though I .. anyway. Next thing I know you’re running and you’re outside my place and I’m so confused-” 

The words are bubbling up inside of her and it’s driving her insane, how quickly he makes her say all the things that she doesn’t want to say, and she snaps at him. “Just _leave it_, Jake.” 

He matches her exasperation, raising his voice and it carries out over to the edges of the park. “_You_ ended this!” She can hear the rustle of his jacket as he throw his hands to the side, and his persistence just frustrates her all the more. “Just …. tell me why you’re running, Amy!”

“I love you! Okay? I love you. You’re a pain in my ass sometimes, and you cannot clean to save yourself, but for whatever it’s worth, I love you.” She laughs, a short self-deprecating bark. “Ain’t that the worst thing you’ve ever heard? But there it is. It’s true. I love you.”

She doesn’t want to look at him, terrified of what she’s certain will be a look of horror on his face. Damn the alcohol, and damn the feelings that had been building up and just had to explode here and now. Everything could have stayed just as they were, if she hadn’t opened her damn mouth.

_But_, the voices in her head reasoned, _you didn’t want things to stay as they were_.

“Ames.” His voice is soft again, but still so loud in this dark garden with only them around.

Her head stays low. “I know. We’re partners, and we both went into this knowing it couldn’t be anything. It doesn’t make _sense_ to change things. And it was stupid of me to - ”

_“Ames.”_

Amy holds her breath, but raises her head anyway. Time to face the music.

His head is lowered, one hand resting along the back of his neck, and at her silence he looks up, and her heart may as well have stopped completely. He’s grinning. That devilish, incredibly handsome grin that has never failed to make her feel completely at home.

He’s grinning, and she can feel her defences start to kick in, but it’s not in a ‘I’m about to make fun of Santiago’ kind of way. He looks like a kid on Christmas Day, opening that one present that he knows will make the day amazing.

And then he speaks. He’s telling her about how long he’s been biting his tongue, his own declarations of love threatening to make an appearance so often that he’d begun to just stop speaking altogether unless he was certain the topic was safe. 

That he dreamed about holding her hand as they walked down the street - about waking up and making breakfast together; of nights at home in their rattiest clothes, falling asleep on the couch while a terrible movie plays in the background. Nights that aren’t about sex, but just being near each other, knowing the other will still be there when the sun rises again.

His hand reaches out for hers, and she takes it without hesitation. She’s never been one to take risks, and certainly not to break the rules, but sometimes you just have to take a chance, and she would throw everything away in a second if she could just stay here in this moment. He tugs her forwards, lips landing on hers as his arms wrap around her so tight, and _finally_, everything is as it should be.

The sun is warm against her back when she wakes in the morning, his arms still wrapped around her and legs tangled together underneath the sheets. And they stay together through it all - while the leaves turn brown and begin to fall; as the days grow cool and everything is covered in a tiny white dust. 

The park between their apartments blooms florals bright and strong with the coming of spring and they cross the grass together one last time, the final box of his possessions tucked under his arm as they head towards the home that was once hers but is now theirs. The memory of shouted drunken confessions pale to the feeling of his hand in hers and she smiles up at him, squeezing his fingers as they pass through the gate and already she is home. 

Whatever came next summer, they would face it together.

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot explain how much I hope you enjoyed this ... I've never based a fic off of a song before, and a bit of pining Amy was fun 😌 (and if, like me, you can't hear her saying 'ain't that the worst thing', let me flex my creative license, coz those are the lyrics and if there was anything I needed to honour it was that!)
> 
> _in vino veritas_ = in wine lies the truth
> 
> Comments and kudos are always welcome but never expected. I'm thankful to all of you 💕
> 
> I have no idea what I'm doing, but I am on Tumblr, and you can find me @amydancepants-peralta.


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